What is up Depthians!
This update brings fires and incendiary weapons to From the Depths!
If you do not know how to access the Alpha branch:
Right click From the Depths in your library list of games.
Properties > Betas tab, look at the Betas participation menu and select alpha_test - alpha_test
Fires
Fires do damage over time and generally have more raw damage than HE. They are very strong against high speed vehicles outside water.
Can still work, but are less efficient against strong materials and under water.
Beyond doing damage fires also soften enemies up for other weapons: they reduce the armor of the blocks they damage.
2 small, but important balance changes worth noting:
- to compensate for being very flammable wood got a small health boost
- incendiary weapons are relatively weak against subs, so the underwater HE damage boost now also applies to all thump damage. More options for submarine hunting!
- Added fires. A fire is a group of cells that take damage over time. Cells below the waterline are extinguished
- Fire damage taken reduces the armor value of blocks, to a minimum of 1. X% total health taken as fire damage = (1-X)% armor left
- Fires spread when they destroy blocks, or if they have lots of fuel relative to their size
- Fires have 3 properties: fuel, intensity and oxidizer
- Fuel determines how much total damage a fire can do. The baseline is 1 fuel = 1 damage
- Intensity determines how much fuel/s a fire uses for every burning cell, and reduces the damage reduction of fire resistant materials
- Oxidizer doubles the armor reduction effect of fires (50% fire damage taken reduces every block to 1 armor), and makes it possible for them to burn under water
- At 20 intensity 1 oxidizer is used for every 4 fuel over water, 1 oxidizer for every 2 fuel below water. Every 10 intensity increase also increases oxidizer use by 1/3 of the base
- Blocks have 2 new properties: fire resistance and flammability
- A fire with intensity below the block's fire resistance does reduced damage to that block. Damage multiplier: (INTENSITY - RESISTANCE * 0.15) / (RESISTANCE * 0.85), 0-1 range.
- Blocks with flammability above 0 add fuel to the fire for every unit of fuel used. Intensity of the fuel added is the block's fire resistance
- Wood has 10 resist and 80% flammability, 1 cell taking damage from a 100 fuel, 50 intensity fire: 50+40=90 fuel left, new total intensity is ~32.22
- Blocks generally have 10-60 fire resist, and 0-80% flammability
- High speed fans the flames, increasing fire damage done/fuel
- Big fires choke themselves out, reducing damage done/fuel. Reduction starts at 3000 total burning cells on a vehicle, minimum efficiency is 30% of the original.
- Added incendiary bodies to APS and missiles. Their intensity range is 20-40, and they can also pack oxidizer
- APS and missile impacts ignite a fire around the explosion point
- Destroying fuel tanks ignites fires, fuel of the fire depends on the fuel level of the vehicle. Intensity is 20
- Fires have an IR signature, a function of total fuel and intensity. IR guidance can lock onto individual fires
- A burning block colliding with another construct spreads the fire to it
- Added a tab to the V menu showing all the active fires on that vehicle/structure
- Added a designer-only character item for igniting fires
- Wood base health up from 180 to 200
- Impact damage gets the same boost as explosions under water
Flamers
Flamers are very cheap, compact weapons and there is no active defense that works against them.
Their main downsides are the short range and damage being done over time through the fires they ignite.
- New weapon system: flamers
- Flamers use fuel, and ignite fires at short range. Cheap and compact for the firepower
- Flame speed is ~300 m/s, maximum range is ~400m
- 2 main block variants, both 1x1x4m beams: connection point in the back with +-35° azi and elevation range, connection point at the bottom with 360° azi and -10° to 89° elevation range
- Pipes connect the main blocks to tanks
- 3 tank types: fuel, oxidizer and catalyst. They increase fuel/oxidizer throughput and intensity
- Intensity without catalyst tanks is 20. 2:1 fuel:catalyst tank ratio is 30 intensity, 1:2 is 50, ...
- 2 tank sizes: 1x1x1 and 1x3x3. Smaller tanks are more compact and more expensive for the firepower
- Tanks can be chained, they can only connect to tanks of the same size and type
- Destroying flamer tanks ignites fires
- Tank lines can be pressurized by adding compressors or steam pipe connections to their end
- Compressors use power, and have a fixed throughput. Compressors can maintain lower pressure in long tank lines
- Flamer pressure is the weighted average of the pressure of individual tank lines. Lower pressure means slightly lower range
Lasers
Fires were a good opportunity to spice lasers up: they now ignite fires on destroying flammable blocks!
They also reduce armor on doing damage and instead of armor the fire resistance stats protects against them.
Raw laser damage was cut in half to compensate, and smoke reduction is much weaker now.
Overall lasers are weaker against most unprotected targets and do better against smoke.
LAMS damage output is unaffected, damage against projectiles is the same as in older versions.
- Lasers have intensity instead of AP, and they are mitigated by fire resistance instead of armor. Damage multiplier is RESIST / INTENSITY, capped at 1
- Lasers ignite fires when they destroy blocks. Fuel of the fire is determined by flammability of the blocks destroyed, intensity by fire resistance
- Laser base damage is reduced to 50%, and smoke/shield reduction is much weaker
- Laser damage counts as fire damage, also reduces armor of the blocks damaged
- Laser fires don't add any oxidizer
- Short range combiner ranges from 100-500 to 150-600
Other changes
- Local weapon controllers now have an alternate mode, they can control weapons up to 4 cells away in 2 directions
- Steam pipe durability increased
- Propeller hub overlay is only displayed in build mode